McCain Disagrees With Gov. Jan Brewer: Most Undocumented Immigrants Are Not ?Drug Mules?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 28th, 2010 4:40 am by HL
McCain Disagrees With Gov. Jan Brewer: Most Undocumented Immigrants Are Not ?Drug Mules?
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, during a recent primary debate, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) falsely claimed that the “majority” of undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. are “coming here and they’re bringing drugs” and “doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.” On Meet the Press today, Sen. John […]
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, during a recent primary debate, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) falsely claimed that the “majority” of undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. are “coming here and they’re bringing drugs” and “doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.” On Meet the Press today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) admitted to David Gregory that he does not agree with Brewer’s fallacious comments, but refused to address whether such gross exaggerations “make the debate harder”:
GREGORY: Do you agree with the Governor of Arizona that most people who come across the border are actually drug mules?
MCCAIN: No. I think that there’s a large number. I think that she’s right that drug cartel movement has drastically increased and the violence — 23,000 Mexicans have been killed in the last three years in Mexico!
GREGORY: Do those kind of comments make the debate harder, make it a hotter debate?
MCCAIN: I think the Governor of Arizona has done a good job in this whole debate. I may not agree with one sentence that she uses, but she’s standing up for Arizona. And I think the people of my state deserve a better environment than the one they are getting from the federal government now.
Watch it:
Perhaps the reason McCain refused to say whether Brewer’s inaccurate generalizations contribute to a toxic environment of misinformation is because he too has been misleading the public with his fear-mongering. McCain once described undocumented immigrants as “God’s children” and reminded people that “the overwhelming majority of people who come to this country are honest, god-fearing, hard-working people.” Now, when discussing immigration, McCain prefers to bring up the “murderous, barbaric behavior” of drug cartels and the appalling death toll in Mexico. However, what he and his colleagues don’t tell voters is that, despite violence in Mexico, the U.S. side of the border is safer than it’s been in years.
Recently released FBI crime statistics show that, despite an increase in illegal immigration, crime has been dropping in Arizona for years. Not only is violent crime declining in Arizona, immigrants themselves are actually less likely to commit crimes and more likely to contribute to the safety of communities they live in. A study of more than 50,000 U.S. cities revealed that “the cities that experience the greatest growth in immigration were the same one that were experiencing the greatest declines in violent crime.”
During his interview with Gregory, McCain also insisted that Congress can not pass immigration reform until the border is secure. Just a few years ago, McCain called an “enforcement-first” strategy an “ineffective and ill-advised approach” and insisted that “the only way to truly secure our border and protect our Nation is through the enactment of comprehensive immigration reform.”
BP Slick Reached Mississippi While Haley Barbour Went Fundraising In Washington
June 26 NASA satellite imagery shows long ribbons of oil have entered the Mississippi Sound. As significant amounts of oil from the BP disaster moved past Mississippi’s barrier islands this week, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) partied in Washington DC to raise money for Republicans. On Wednesday, boats were skimming oil near the Petit Bois Island at […]
June 26 NASA satellite imagery shows long ribbons of oil have entered the Mississippi Sound.
As significant amounts of oil from the BP disaster moved past Mississippi’s barrier islands this week, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) partied in Washington DC to raise money for Republicans. On Wednesday, boats were skimming oil near the Petit Bois Island at the Mississippi-Alabama border. Barbour decided to attend to his duties as a political fundraiser:
Barbour on Thursday held Washington fund-raisers for the Republican Governors Association, which he heads, and for one of his political action committees, which is raising money for GOP congressional candidates. His fund-raising is receiving some national media attention and feuling speculation that he is already gearing up for a run for president in 2012.
“The most important thing right now is the 2010 elections,” Barbour told reporters.
Continuing his record of dismissing the magnitude of the BP disaster, Barbour said on Friday after he returned to Mississippi that major slicks miles long within the Mississippi Sound “shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.” By Saturday, there were “long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving into the Sound between the barrier islands.”
The system for responding to a major oil spill depends on coordination between the federal government, the responsible oil company, and the state government. Out of the 6,000 National Guard troops President Obama has authorized for response in Mississippi, Haley Barbour has mobilized only 58. However, he has declared today to be a Day of Prayer “to remember the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”
